The Mysteries of Marcie Fleach:Ch4-The Tri-state Olympiad of Science
by Sketchpad
Summary: Not having Velma by her side in this year's Olympiad, Marcie decides not to compete. But when this year's competitors are kidnappped and replaced with cunning riddles, Marcie will find out that this Olympiad is not only challenging, but deadly...
1. Chapter 1

_1~_

A heavy fog flowed in from the warm, Californian waters, shrouding the dark shipping docks of Crystal Cove, which were now abandoned of workers in the quiet evening.

Within the rented interior of Warehouse Number Eight, one of the largest properties that served the docks, lights burned on and activity reigned.

Welders and engineers cut, probed, studied and carefully were assembling sections of steely sheet work that looked intriguingly humanoid, as though they were erecting a statue.

Safely put aside in a corner of the warehouse were two finished halves of a hollow, metal head, sculpted and painted to resemble a dark-bearded, ruddy-nosed man with an arrogant and dangerous rise to his brow.

Sections of bent arm were being fitted together in the acrid, oxyacetylene light, while plating for the massive, bare torso were being machined and shaped into its final forms.

From the elevated office's walkway, high above the din of construction, Greenman observed everything that went on with focused satisfaction.

He pictured the eminent completion of this project and gave a smirk of secret contentment. The days were ticking down with every element of his private, long-ranging plan either successfully done or nearly so.

With a eager sigh, he knew that for the first time, in a very long time, his life was truly becoming nothing short of electric.

He had known sacrifice personally. It had shaped the very path of his life. His faith acknowledged it. His gods demanded it, and they had put him upon this chaotic world to work their will...and his own.

Thinking of them made his thoughts jump to their cryptic warning of that so-called "alchemist."

They had told him that her hand would make a way for him, and according to the local paper, her seemingly proactive mystery-solving had indeed made things considerably easier for him to acquire the T.H.R.O.B.A.C. ruins.

But that same hand could close upon him, they also warned, perhaps undoing everything he had put together.

He put away such troubling notions and considered. If he was right about who this "alchemist" was, if she was, indeed, the daughter of that stubborn, inconsequential, shop-keep of a businessman, then taking her measure would be an interesting diversion before she was finally put to death.

Greenman scanned over the work area and absently saw the already completed sign leaning against a far wall. A gaudily painted affair that read, "The Rolling Boulder."

He turned his attention from that upon hearing the footsteps of a well-dressed man, who approached, stopped, and quietly held up a leather briefcase.

The aide opened the case without speaking, allowing Greenman to peruse the contents with a pleased, leisurely air.

Seated deeply inside shaped depressions in a foam inlay were five fat, beautifully cut gems of various, subtle colors, that winked and shone from the interior lights above, and glowed from within with promised, eldritch power.

Smiling, Greenman finally gave voice to his anticipations.

"Soon," he quietly said.

* * *

The afternoon sun filtered and shone the through the Spanish Mission archways and windows of Crystal Cove High, illuminating the chattering throngs of students who moved through the hallways, and to their lockers, after attending their last class of the day.

On the various bulletin boards that hung about were pinned all manner of notices, reminders and events for all and sundry to see, but to Marcie Fleach, the only missive that she focused on morosely were the large, colorful posters that commanded their own places on the school walls.

Posters that boldly announced the arrival of this year's Tri-State Olympiad of Science.

From a nearby classroom, Jason Wyatt had waddled out onto the hall, and upon seeing Marcie staring at one of the posters, approached her.

"What's wrong, Marcie?" he asked from behind her. "You've been mopey all week."

Marcie glanced in Jason's direction, but didn't turn to acknowledge him, saying, "That's what I've always like about you, Jason. Your keen observational skills."

"Really?" Jason asked, brightening to this unexpected compliment, and failing to see the sarcasm underneath.

"No," Marcie deadpanned. "Look around."

Jason did as he was asked, but noticed nothing out of the ordinary, so he shrugged in response.

"Pretty much a normal day to me," he said, "Why? What's wrong?"

Marcie couldn't believe that such a self-declared scientist would not know what event was occurring this week. With a sigh, she turned to face Jason, and leaned back by the poster to rest.

"What's wrong is that the Olympiad is here," Marcie explained, ticking off the points with her fingers. "What's wrong is that the Olympiad doesn't allow solo competitors. What's wrong is that I hadn't finished any science projects to enter said Olympiad, but that's a moot point. See point two."

Marcie wistfully lifted her head to see the image that had so long filled her mind and, it appeared, her heart.

"And what's really wrong is...I still miss Velma," she admitted.

Jason watched the drama play out subtly in her eyes, then nodded his head in understanding.

"Oh. I miss her, too," he said, then decided to lighten the mood. It was the end of school for the day, after all. A good time of day, if ever there was any.

"How about we go over to Rude Pizza's. I've got some coupons, so I'll treat!" Jason offered.

Marcie berated herself inwardly. Her pining was having an immediate effect on her surroundings by bringing a friend down. She began to wonder if the saying, 'Misery loves company' could be proven and quantified into scientific terms. She certainly felt like there were grounds for further study.

"Thanks, Jason," she told him. "Sorry for being such an acid compound in the punchbowl. Tell you what. I have to check something out. Wait for me by the Clue Cruiser. I won't be long."

"Okay," Jason said, and then he left.

_'I won't be long,' _she thought when he was gone. _'Before I met V, I would have said, "I won't _belong_."_

Principal Quinlan could be seen walking briskly through the thinning crowds towards Marcie, and the teen began to wonder why she was suddenly so popular today.

Marcie nodded to the woman, saying, "Congratulations, Miss Quinlan. Crystal Cove High made it to the Olympiad again this year."

The principal gave a giddy laugh. "Oh, as if you didn't know! This is so exciting, and the school owes its entry this year to hard-working students like you. What I can't understand is why you would bow out this year, Marcie? Your grades are wonderful. More than good enough to qualify. What's wrong?"

Marcie stifled another sigh upon hearing another "What's wrong?" question again.

"Velma's not here, ma'am," Marcie said.

Quinlan, remembering Dinkley's sudden absence, nodded. "Oh, that's right. You two were our dream team for quite a while. Well, how about getting someone else to partner with you. Crystal Cove High has got its share of Mensa applicants around here. How about that boy you hang out with sometimes. Jason Wyatt?"

Marcie gave a weak smile. "No thanks, Principal Quinlan. It's too late to sign up, anyway, and Jason's not my type, uh, I mean, we...don't see eye-to-eye on what kind of science projects to work on."

If Quinlan had noticed Marcie's flustering faux pas, she made no indication. Instead, she let the subject drop.

"Well, okay, Marcie," she relented. "But if you want to cheer us on, they're having the Olympiad's commencement at the convention center downtown."

Marcie managed another weak, gracious smile. No sense in bringing her down with my rain clouds, she thought.

"Thanks, Miss Quinlan," Marcie said. "I might just come. It'll give me a chance to check out the new talent, there."

"All right, Marcie. We'll see you there. Bye."

"Bye, Miss Quinlan," said Marcie, watching her principal go.

'I'm purposely going to an Olympiad,' she thought. 'that I'm already feeling depressed over.'

She shook her head slowly as she stared at the event poster again, and wondered if, deep down, she was a true glutton for punishment.

* * *

Mystery Incorporated settled deeply in the plush, leatherette seating of the booth in the Oklahoma small town cafe that they agreed meet in.

For several days now, after the end of some successful cases, one or two members would spot, just from the corner of their perception, the shape of a man standing in the far shadows of doorways, of corners, of eaves.

The shape would change slightly in the space of a few sightings, being taller in some cases, slimmer in others, but always noticed just far enough to seem innocuous. And every attempt to screw up enough courage to pursue has ended with Mystery Inc. literally chasing shadows.

The bell over the opening front door heralded the entry of Shaggy and Scooby from outside. Both sat on the outer seating of the booth, and made their report to the others.

"Did you guys see him?" Fred asked.

"Me and Scoob just finished checking around the block," Shaggy said, plucking a danish from the communal table. "No sign of that shadow man, so far."

"That's the fifth time we caught him checking up on us," Fred muttered. "I thought it was nothing until we saw him again in Colorado. Do you think we're being followed, gang?"

Daphne, following Velma's lead in cautiously glancing out the broad cafe window, answered, "It's beginning to look like it. Do you think it has anything to do with Mr. E? Someone he might've sent to keep tabs on us?"

Scooby, watching the humans ponder, chewed on the question himself, and, finding no answers forthcoming, shrugged and said, "Rry got ruthin'."

"It sounds like it's a mystery _within _our usual mysteries," Fred considered. "What do you think, Velma?" he asked, glancing over to the girl, who hadn't looked away from the window since Shaggy and Scooby's return.

Velma's eyes didn't dart or scan the parking lot and the surrounding street for anyone who fit her estimation of suspicious people. She had done that a while ago and found nothing to arouse that suspicion, so she spent her time now staring thoughtfully out into space.

In the time it took to span three states, their little road trip was becoming more and more intriguing with each new glimpse of this "shadow man," and she refused to believe that it had nothing to do with vulnerable Mystery Inc. being out on the road.

She considered Daphne's guess on the identity of the man's employer, as opposed to the man himself. Logically, it was a good place to start. It could be completely plausible that this mystery man was, indeed, a minion of Professor Harlan Ellison's.

Hadn't Ricky Owens, the first Mr. E, sent spies like Ed Machine, and even Marcie into their midst?

Ellison's own identity and past proved to be as cloaked as any shadow, at least until his recent confession of them. However, experience was forcing Velma not to dismiss her inquisitive feelings based on that admission alone, as she had at first blush, before leaving her home. His motivations and his seeming interest with her and her friends could be just as labyrinthine, just as inscrutable...and just as dark as the Evil Entity's.

Velma gave a quiet sigh. Thoughts were tumbling in her head like mis-matched socks in a dryer. Half-seen shadow man observations across three states, and unfinished investigations from their most recent case, not to mention, now troubling thoughts of possibly being lead around by the collective nose by a man whom she, admittedly, knew less than this universe's Marcie Fleach during one of her occasional and awkward web chats.

It felt too soon on her part to weigh in on a decision, but the gang needed the feedback.

"We _are_ being followed, guys," she finally said. "But I'll have to get back to you on whether or not Mr. E has anything to do with it."

Marcie calmly wondered if it was too late to sneak out and meet Jason at Rude Pizza, as she stood in the middle of the convention center ballroom, like an island of awkward boredom in a sea of educational networking and bittersweet memories.

Looking around, she saw, past the folding chairs for the invited guests and the open space in the room, seemingly set aside for the event's mass schmoozing, the three large round tables, representing the three competing states of California, Washington, and Nevada, set up in front of the overlooking stage, that would seat the three teams of two science Olympiads, their parents, and their school's principal.

Off to one side of the ballroom was a long caterer's table, to which Marcie headed towards.

The commencement toast that both celebrated and kicked off the Olympiad was always an elaborate affair, crowded with proud, young entrants, even prouder parents, principals, the event's officials, and photographers and reporters from such magazines as The Geekly Weekly and The Nerd is the Word. Marcie could see that none of its pomp was missing, now.

Yet, every team she glanced at reminded her of those halcyon days of she and Velma. She simply couldn't help it. The raw hunger of scientific competition, the natural high of scholastic honor heaped upon their clever brows, even if they hadn't won anything, yet. It all felt so painfully familiar.

But it was more than even that. It was the memory of that wonderful, electric intimacy that told her that it was just Velma and her against the world. That feeling was all hers.

But Marcie found that the sudden nostalgia didn't reenergize her, as she hoped. It, instead, did the opposite. She felt like some retired, old athlete masochistically trying to recapture her youth by coming here to, as she had said earlier, "check out the new talent."

Marcie shook her head glumly, as she leaned against the table while it was being attended by a muscular specimen of the catering staff, and looked absently at a column of stacked cups nearby. She even _sounded_ old.

As the groups of eager attendees met in tight, gregarious orbits, chatted, and then broke away, pleasantly, to form new clusters of social interaction, a well-dressed, brunette girl separated from the convivial herd, and approached an oblivious Marcie.

"Marcie? Marcie Fleet?" the girl gushed. "It's been awhile!"

Marcie awoke from her funk to acknowledge her, quizzically. "Fleach, actually. Who are you?"

The girl spoke, gesturing to herself. "You don't recognize me, Marcie? I'm Sara. Sara Avanti. Golden Dunes High, Nevada?"

Marcie dismissed her morose nostalgia and ran names and faces through her memories of past Olympiads. Finally a connection was established.

"Oh, yeah!" Marcie brightened with remembrance. "You competed four years ago when the Olympiad was held there. Sorry about what Team Washington's project did to your principal."

Sara shrugged in understanding. "I guess that's why they call it a freak accident."

"I see that he made this year," Marcie commented, nodding to where she could see him. "How's he doing, by the way?"

"Oh, he's fine," said Sara. "He's totally used to the cyborg prosthetics by now. Anyway, I just came over to see how you were doing. Where's your partner in crime? Velma?"

Marcie stiffened a little. She hadn't expected for anyone at the toast to come and ask her where her partner was. She wasn't entirely sure herself, most days.

"Oh, she...uh, couldn't make it this year," Marcie stammered slightly, but failed to hide the disappointment in her face. "She was called away. That why I decided not to enter this year."

Sara gave a sympathetic nod, then said. "That's a shame, Marcie. Well, silver lining! I guess now the rest of the states will have a fighting chance."

Marcie couldn't help but notice the nature of Sara's commiseration. It sounded as forced, as it was backhanded.

"Everybody had a fighting chance, back then, Sara," Marcie defended herself. "They still do. Velma and I were just-"

"Better?" Sara finished, the trace of an edge on the word.

Marcie gave a confused, yet wary glance at Sara. She wasn't so depressed as to miss an attack when it was issued, and Marcie was starting to feel more than a little put upon.

"I was going to say "lucky," that we had the opportunity to represent our state and school," Marcie explained, evenly. "Just like everyone else."

"But you and Velma won just about every Olympiad in recent years," Sara countered, her veneer of civility starting to wane. "_Unlike_ everybody else."

Marcie gave a deep sigh of bored disgust. She was in no mood for a fight. "Are you sure you didn't come over here to tell me you're jealous, Sara? Because that's what it looks like from where I'm standing."

Sara, now conscious of her catty mood, returned to her civility with a smile that was both tight and unconvincing.

"I'm not jealous of anything, Marcie. I was just saying that with you and Velma out of the picture, now, things will be a little more...even...for the rest of us."

Marcie looked a little more confused. "Rest of us? From what I read, you're not even entered in the Olympiad this year. So, what's with the third degree?"

"My _cousin's _in the Olympiad, now, and we're gunning for the gold, this year," Sara said, irately crossing her arms. "I'm just making sure that everybody knows that. Don't want another blow-out from Crystal Cove, y'know?"

Now it was Marcie's turn to cross arms in irritation.

"Well, I'm sorry that you felt we were given such an unfair advantage, Sara," Marcie said, surly. "I guess if my mother married the CEO of AvantTech Systems, I'd expect things to come easier, too."

Sara stiffened. "What? What are you saying? That I went to my _folks_ to get in? That I didn't work _hard_ to get my entry into that Olympiad?"

Marcie just rolled her eyes at Sara. Bad enough that she came to this toast to begin with. Personally, there was nothing here for her. But now to be in the middle of a pissing contest with some bitter opponent who challenged her in what seemed like a hundred years ago, was beyond the pale.

The ballroom doors beckoned her, and she eagerly prepared to leave, but decided to fire one more debilitating salvo before disengaging.

"Your original science project on telecommunication was two soup cans and some string," Marcie said, dismissively. "proving conclusively that, at least, you've got _nepotism_ down to a science." She then turned on her heel and departed from the girl.

From a group of chatting adults, Sara's mother approached her daughter, prompted not from hearing the exchange, but from reading the mutually negative body language of the two girls from a distance.

"Who was that, dear?" she asked Sara.

"Marcie Fleach," Sara sniffed.

"One of the winners of the last Olympiad? I heard that she's not competing, this year. Where's the other one? Vanna...Dinkle?"

Velma Dinkley, Mom," Sara corrected with a sigh. Her mother was terrible with names. "and she's a no-show."

"Oh," her mother said. "Is that's why Fleach isn't competing this time? The poor dear looked upset."

I guess so, Mom," Sara said, watching Marcie stomp past the closing ballroom doors, with a darkly, contented smile. "It's a shame how some people behave when they can't get their own way."

The sound of the Olympiad's host clearing his throat into the microphone of the podium on stage, caused everyone present to stop their present conversations and walk over to the caterers' table. It was time.

A small-statured caterer hefted a clear, ornate punchbowl filled with red, aromatic fruit juice onto the center of the table, and removed the plastic wrap from over its mouth.

Cups were separated from their stacks, filled with punch, and then passed out carefully to the thirsty guests. The host, from his position on stage, next to his podium, was offered a cup.

When all were offered a cup, the host raised his, in salute.

"To all of these worthy students who have earned the honor of competing in this year's Tri-state Olympiad of Science," he enunciated. "We wish you sharp, quick minds and long-lasting curiosity. Long live knowledge!"

With a earnest repeat of "Long live knowledge," from all in attendance, the guests raised their disposable glasses, heartily, and drank their fill.


	2. 2

_2~_

Marcie maneuvered past the clusters of conventioneers in a huff. She had just made it to the main entrance, when a reproachful thought stopped her cold in her tracks.

Quinlan.

A pang of guilt moved through her as she thought about the ebullient principal. This was as much Quinlan's event as it was Marcie's schoolmates'.

"Walking out on Principal Quinlan. Way to go, Marcie," she said to herself. "She was nice enough to invite me to the toast. That was an honor. I can't ruin her moment like that."

She turned around and marched back through the crowds.

It had finally clicked as to why Quinlan had invited her in the first place. She wanted Marcie to represent the school by being there, just as much as they did. To embarrass her school with such childish behavior, as storming off, would not only have been inconsiderate, but selfish to an almost personal degree.

Hoping that Principal Quinlan hadn't noticed her slipping away, Marcie reached for the doors and prepared to quietly reenter the ballroom unobtrusively.

The doors were locked.

She twisted the door knobs a bit more vigorously, but the doors resisted her, and after a few more pulls and soft raps on the doors, a troubled Marcie muttered to herself, "This doesn't make sense."

She left and a few minutes later, she returned with the building's manager and a security guard.

The manager pulled out a ringed mass of keys, selected one, and slid it into the locks. They opened.

What he, the guard, and Marcie saw next was chilling.

Bodies had littered the floor of the ballroom.

The ballroom looked as though it played host to a silent, bloodless massacre, as though the biblical Angel of Death had swept through the room, leaving juice-stained victims in his implacable wake.

Marcie hesitated to enter. She wanted to check on her principal, on the others, but the disturbing tableau had momentarily locked her legs in frightened inactivity.

Only after she saw the guard and manager step past her, did she finally find the nerve to follow them into the room.

"What happened in here," the manager asked, kneeling beside a prone woman. The reassuring sound of her snore brought with it hope for the others, and with a few light, quick slaps to the cheek, the woman stirred slowly into conscious life again.

"I don't know, sir," Marcie answered, following the manager's lead in reviving Principal Quinlan. "I left the room for a few minutes, and when I came back, it was locked."

Marcie looked around the space. Guests and officials were sprawled on the floor, close to the caterers' table, some still holding spilled cups lightly in their limp hands. Reporters and photographers fell in a heap a little further away from their subjects.

The manager walked over to another body, but called over to the guard, who had succeeded in rousing another victim.

"Barnaby, call an ambulance," he ordered. "We'll keep working here." The guard nodded, and then left the room.

Quinlan peered up at Marcie with bleary eyes, and asked, "Marcie? What...hit me? I was drinking a toast to the competitors, and the next thing I know, I hit the floor."

"The drinks must've been spiked with some sort of knock-out drug," Marcie easily surmised. If that was the case, she thought, then that quickly begged the question...

"Where are the caterers?" Marcie asked aloud. Of all the adult bodies discovered, not one of them wore the white livery of the catering staff.

She was about to mentally file them away as possible suspects to mention to the authorities, upon their arrival, when Quinlan, looking around, unsteadily, groggily asked another question that earned its place of top priority in Marcie's mind.

"Marcie...where are the kids?"

If Marcie had thought this year's Olympiad had seemed a bit sedate, then the sight of the sheriff and his deputies questioning the rallied science magazine reporters and photographers, and the stalwart members of Crystal Cove's emergency medical teams settling the nerves of revived guests and officials, put that all to rest.

While other deputies questioned distraught family members and others, Deputy Bucky walked away from a fellow deputy that had relayed a report to him.

He spied his commanding officer standing on the stage, by the podium, looking over the emotional hubbub near the caterers' table, down below, and questioning the event's host.

Bucky waddled up to Sheriff Bronson Stone's side and reported the other deputy's findings.

"Sheriff, we found the catering truck parked in the loading dock out back," Bucky said. "The real caterers were tied up in the back and their uniforms were missing."

Stone stroked his squarish chin, thoughtfully. "That connects with what the event coordinator, here, said. The caterers were gone when everyone woke up." Stone turned his attention back to the frazzled man.

"Now when you woke up," the sheriff confirmed. "The junior eggheads were gone and you found this..." He gestured to the flat-surfaced object opened and sitting on top of the podium. "sitting over here."

"Yes, Sheriff!" said the host, the fear of losing his well-paying job, heavy in his voice. "In the history of the Olympiad this has never happened before. An attack and a multiple kidnapping? This could ruin the event for good!"

"Well, why didn't you have security screen your guests before your little nerd shindig?" Stone drawled.

"We prided ourselves that we enlightened people had no need for such measures," the host answered with quick pride, then added, uncomfortably, "And Sheriff, I would thank you to please stop disparaging our Olympiad. This is, or rather, was a grand celebration of intellectual excellence."

Stone sniffed at that. "And yet you people were the ones who got rolled on. Ya don't look very smart from where I'm sittin'."

"But you're not sitting, Sheriff. You're standing," Marcie said from behind him, peering past the big man to see the object on the podium. It was an open laptop. Its monitor was on and a glowing message was writ on its face.

The host, wondering why a girl was present on the stage with the adults, and how that could possibly help, took a closer look at Marcie's face, recognized it for the first time today, and brightened, despite the situation.

"Marcie Fleach?" he asked. "I would have expected you to competing again with your partner, Velma Dinkley."

"If we had," Marcie said. "We probably would have been just waking up from the punch, like everyone else."

"Indeed. Still, Principal Quinlan neglected to tell me that she had invited you. If she did, I would have brought you up on stage to make a little speech. But why _are_ you here?" the host asked, wanting to know, for the sake of conversation, her reasons for attending, if she was not participating.

Marcie, thinking he was wondering why she was on stage with them, while she studied the message on the computer screen, simply answered, "Curiosity."

It was a truthful response, she had to admit. Curiosity had steered her, almost subconsciously, to the stage, after she had made sure that Principal Quinlan was put right, and had noticed the laptop.

The host scratched his bald spot in thought. "I hadn't seen this laptop on the podium when I came to speak. I wonder who left it."

Stone, bored of the talk between the two, and realizing that he wasn't getting any of his sheriffing duties in, chimed in.

"It's obvious that we're dealing here is some geek who's trying to get back at all of you brainy types because you didn't let him join your little computer club," Stone dismissed.

Marcie thought that out and, with an honest start, said to the sheriff, "You know, Sheriff, that's not such a bad hypothesis."

"It's not?" he asked, suspicious that a brainy type would agree so quickly with him. Then he asked, as an afterthought, "And what's a hypothesis?"

"A guess," Marcie answered. "Perhaps that _was _the motivation of this attacker." She turned to the host.

"Has there ever been any threats to stop the Olympiad because of disgruntled entrants?" Marcie asked him.

"Not at all," he explained. "As you know, all competitors are screened based on their scholastic achievements, test scores, and grade averages. You, yourself, Miss Fleach, have had scores that consistently put you and Miss Dinkley in the highest percentile for acceptance in the Olympiad, year after year. An historical triumph for the event, as a whole."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," an indifferent Stone grumbled, waving the accolades away.

Marcie ignored Stone's rudeness and read the message. "Answer the riddle to get the code and start the game." She then pondered, "What game?"

The host looked at the computer again and said, "I haven't the foggiest."

Marcie reached over and, taking a chance to proceed further, tapped the ENTER key.

"Hey, cut that out," Stone chided her. A four-line riddle appeared in the screen's center for her to read next.

"This crystal's wondrous to a fault,

When pay day comes, it's in a vault,

It also grinds plants to a halt,

What is the crystal? It's name is-blank."

"Salt," Marcie said, matter-of-factly.

Stone, not understanding a bit of the proceedings, gave a weary scowl to Marcie that she recognized all too quickly, because it was given to her all too frequently, these days.

"What are you doing here, anyway, Margo?" he asked. "This is a police investigation, not a trivia game."

"It's Marcie, Sheriff," she corrected, patiently. "and the answer _is_ salt."

"I suppose whoever left this wants someone to type it on the screen," the host suggested. Reaching past Marcie, he typed in the word "salt" over the underlined space underneath the riddle. In response, the computer showed him a frowny face and a distressing message.

"Ah! It didn't work!" the host said, panicking. "We have two minutes and two more tries before it erases _all_ the riddles, and we never see the children again!"

Quickly, Stone glowered at the girl in justification. "You see? You don't know what you're doing. Now get outta here, Marsha, before I run you in for interfering in my sheriffy duties."

Marcie ignore his threats, but couldn't understand what was going on. It was the right answer.

"But, Sheriff, the answer is salt!" she explained, hoping that he would calm down, and let her stay and help. "It's a crystal, in ancient Rome, it was used as money, and if enough of it is spread on fertile ground, plants won't grow."

Marcie turned to the host, and bade him, "Type sodium chloride!"

The host typed the words in, and again, a frowny face appeared.

The host trembled. His actions were possibly dooming the young contestants as he typed, and he seriously began to wonder if letting one of the previous champions of the Science Olympiad call the shots on a kidnapping investigation was the wisest course of action. "It didn't work!"

Marcie screwed up her face in frustration and stared at the laptop in deep thought. It was salt, she thought, angrily. She'd bet her life on it, but then, with a pang of fear, she suddenly understood, as the host did, that she was actually betting the missing children's lives.

She decided to take a calming breath and think. No emotions. Just reason. Then a thought came to her.

Quickly, she typed in the chemical notation for sodium chloride, and breathed a prayer.

A smiley face appeared as her reward, and the next riddle appeared on the screen. Relieved, she read on.

"Three riddles will tell where three teams are hidden,

This may be a game, but I'm far from kiddin',

Follow the clues that I have written,

To a code for a bomb, to be overridden."

Everyone shivered at the mention of a bomb. With a word, the stakes had just jumped to a very urgent and uncomfortable level.

A second riddle scrolled across the monitor. This time, the sheriff read, his mind trying to decipher the conundrum as fast as he could read it. It seemed very unlikely.

"Team One is in this place, concealed,

With bones for sale and thrones on wheels,

Steel tanks save and blades can heal,

A martial sounding place revealed."

Stone turned to Bucky, all business. "Alright, get this thing to the lab and have it dusted for prints, while we figure out what this riddle means."

He then turned to where Marcie had been standing. "Okay, girly, you-"

She was gone.

He looked out over the ballroom, scanning every worried or reassuring face below, checking every far corner of the room. Nothing. There wasn't a single sighting of that messy mop of brown hair anywhere.

The sheriff growled low in irritation, as he descended from the stage. He had a feeling that she was going to get involved somehow, and was getting a little tired of her sticking her spectacle-balancing nose where it didn't belong.

Stopping by the catering table, Stone sighed, frustrated that he didn't get to finish his harangue, and asked a tag-along Bucky, "Where did she go?"

"I don't know, Sheriff."

"Eh, it's just as well," Stone said, haughtily. "This is a case that requires the keen mind of years of law enforcement, and the instincts of a street-wise jungle cat."

"Yes, sir," Bucky gushed.

Stone rubbed his throat for a moment. "Working on a case like this makes me a tad thirsty." He looked over and saw a filled, abandoned cup next to the punchbowl.

The street-wise jungle cat was out soon after.


	3. 3

_3~_

Reporters were waiting outside for Stone, once he recovered from the punch and made his way to the front of the building. Once seen, they encircled and pounced on him with questions from every side, like a practiced pack of journalistic wild dogs on prey.

Around the back of the convention center, a single police car was parked in the middle of the loading docks' driveway, at an angle more to keep vehicles from leaving than anything else.

Marcie quietly walked around the building after she had left the ballroom, interested in not being caught, and in learning all she could from the three ambushed caterers, whom she saw were talking with a interviewing deputy on duty, and wrapped in police-issue blankets.

From her hiding spot along the support arcade, she thought hard. She wanted to know what the deputy was getting from the men, but she knew that the policeman would just as soon report her to Stone, as offer up any clues to her.

_Clues_, she thought again, changing her tactics with sudden inspiration. Perhaps in the truck.

From her position by the loading docks, Marcie was closer to the nearby catering truck than to its owners. But she frowned when she saw that the truck was parked with its rear doors logically pointing out its parking spot for ease of loading. If she tried to casually walk over to open them, she'd be easy prey for the caterers, nevermind the deputy.

Studying the rest of the vehicle, however, she soon found a way in. The driver-side window was a more than halfway down.

The men were engaged in their conversation, so much so, that if she timed it just right, she could sneak over to the vehicle, open the door, and slip in.

Thankful that the docks and its parking lot were all concrete and asphalt, and not lined with lawn for her feet to crush and give her position away, Marcie hunched over and sped-walked over to the side of a nearby maintenance crew's pickup truck. Parked next to that, was her quarry.

She braved a peek over the truck's dented hood to check the situation by the deputy's car. Nothing had changed, but the deputy was moving around more. If he turned his head in her direction while she moved...

Marcie shook the thought away, she was wasting time with dire possibilities. She hunkered down again and awkwardly squeezed herself through the narrow space that was made between the truck's bumper and radiator grill, and the concrete wall of the dockside parking lot.

Fortunately, the truck's driver hadn't parked it too close to the wall, allowing Marcie to get past with only a dirty wool jacket to show for her efforts.

She was closer now, close enough to hear snatches of talk from the men, as she crept by the side of the catering truck. Reaching the driver-side door, Marcie gripped the handle and lifted it. The door was heldfast. Locked.

She realized fast that things were going to be tricky for her. She would have to stand up, momentarily, to reach inside the door to open it, and expose herself to discovery.

Marcie slowly straightened herself up into a wary stance, willing herself to be unnoticed. The men were, at the moment, too focused on their immediate feelings of what happened today to use their peripheral vision to see Marcie reach in through the window and quietly open the resisting door.

Crawling across the driver's seat, Marcie decided against closing the door and giving herself away. She kept low of the surrounding windows and shimmied between the driver's and the front passenger's seat, sliding onto the floor of the half-filled rear cargo area.

No windows in the truck's loading area meant that Marcie had the confidence to move around more freely among the sealed containers of food and boxes of utensils, but she had to work quickly.

Sliding stacks of boxes and checking around the spaces they stood yielded nothing for her, as she worked her way methodically towards the rear loading doors, and she was beginning to think she was dangerously wasting her time there, when her eyes spotted a slip of paper lying near the bottom hinge of one of the doors.

Going on hands and knees, Marcie quickly moved over to the paper and examined it.

It was a receipt from a restaurant, a cafe, actually, crumpled and greasy from misuse, showing the tally for a roast beef sandwich, a slice of apple pie, and a cup of coffee.

"Rhonda's Rhoadside Cafe," she read. Then she froze in terror, as she heard someone talking up front. One of the caterers had went to the truck and was about to open the door to get in.

Marcie ducked behind a stack of wide boxes, as the man rummaged around the seats for a few moments.

From her hiding space, Marcie heard one of the men yell out that the truck's keys were with him, prompting the rummager to stop his search and leave the vehicle, much to the girl's relief.

Feeling that she had stayed longer than was appropriate for a guest, Marcie pocketed the clue and crawled back to the forward seats, this time, carefully unlocking the passenger-side door, and slipping out.

Risking a peek from around the truck's rear, she saw that the caterers were alone for the moment, standing by the deputy's patrol car. Time for some questions.

She sauntered over to the blanketed trio, just as they finally took notice of her approach.

"Excuse me, gentlemen," Marcie started. "I was wondering if any of you fellas seen who attacked you?"

One of the caterers sighed. "It happened too fast, and they were wearing masks. One minute, we were setting up for that Science thing, the next, some guys nail us with knock-out darts and took our uniforms."

"We told the police everything we knew," said the second caterer.

Marcie was satisfied, inwardly. She figured foul play, and it was confirmed.

"One last thing," she asked. "Do any of you eat at a place called Rhonda's Rhoadside Cafe?"

The third caterer looked up in thought, then said, "Nope, can't say that we do. We've always eaten at Eleanor's Easy Eatery."

Marcie could see the deputy coming back. Time to go.

She filed the info away, thanked the men, and then began to depart.

"Hey," the third caterer called out. "Who are you?"

Marcie turned, a look of innocence working on her face. "Me? I'm Margo Freep. Reporter for Crystal Cove High School Newspaper. I have to get back before the presses start pressing, or rolling, or whatever they do. Bye!"

She jogged away from the confused men just as the policeman returned. He only caught sight of Marcie's back, and so asked the caterers who she was.

"Someone named Freep," said the first caterer. Then he looked at the second one. "She said her name was Freep, right?"

"Freep, yeah," confirmed the second.

"Yeah," the third chimed in. "She looked like a Freep."

* * *

Following the address printed on the top of the receipt, Marcie pulled up into the cafe's small parking lot.

Stepping out of the Clue Cruiser, she took in the lay of the place.

It looked like a typical, or stereotypical, roadside eatery. The kind one would see gracing the front of one of those "Wish You Were Here" postcards. 1950's architecture, tall neon sign that one could see for a mile, the occasional eighteen-wheeler parked in the lot for ambience, and large booth windows that gave a nice view of the gas station and neighboring motel across the road.

Marcie entered the establishment, and wasn't met with so much as a glance from the drifters, truckers and local folk who patronized the place. The same couldn't be said for the gregarious, big-haired, middle-aged woman who did stop to watch who walked into her restaurant.

Rhonda assessed Marcie in seconds, and didn't like what she saw. She walked briskly over to the teenager, concern in her eyes, as a way of greeting.

"Oh, my grease and gravy!" the proprietress fretted at Marcie, appraising her as thoroughly as if she were a race horse. "Sugar, look at you, you're just wastin' away!"

The woman leaned her head in the general direction of the kitchen, and called out, "Jean-Phillipe, whip up some of my Rhoadside Stew for this girl, on the house!"

The unabashed and slightly uncomfortable attention was making diners turn their collective attention to Marcie, yet before she could diplomatically process all of the hullabaloo that this stranger was creating on the girl's behalf, Rhonda placed a hand on Marcie's shoulder and maternally took her aside.

"Listen to me, honey," Rhonda conferred, quietly. "I was young once, too, but there ain't no need to be runnin' to the bathroom after every meal and starving yourself for the boys. If they can't see your inner beauty, then they just ain't worth it."

Marcie, finally understanding what the fuss was about, rolled her eyes, and said, in a polite, yet long-suffered deadpan, "While I appreciate the free meal, ma'am, I'm not bulimic."

Rhonda looked closely at Marcie, while she offered the girl a table, not sure if she should believe her. She could have just said that to refuse the help out of embarrassment.

"Are you sure, hon?" Rhonda asked. "It's all right to talk it out. We're both women, here."

"Yes, I'm quite sure," Marcie said, patiently, as she sat down. "I was just wondering if you could help me with something."

That seemed to placate the restaurateur. "All right. Shoot."

Marcie took out the receipt and handed it to her. "I came across a receipt to this cafe. The date on it says that it was printed out a few days ago. I'd like to know if you could tell me who purchased the items on it."

Rhonda gave it a quick perusal, but then, she shook her head, regretfully. "Oh, we got a lot of folks comin' through here, all the time, Sugar. But it looks like whoever paid for all of this, paid in cash. I'm sorry, hon. If he or she used a credit card, I could probably help ya more. Now, let's see what we can do about fattin' you up some." She returned the paper to Marcie, and then took her leave.

While Marcie waited for her stew to arrive, she glumly held the receipt between her fingers, rubbing the tips against the paper while she thought.

_'There has to be more to this,' _she mused, then she pocketed the receipt and scowled in thought.

"I have to figure out what that riddle meant," Marcie mused aloud. Meanwhile, the nearby patrons quietly wondered why she was suddenly talking to herself.

She ran the memorized stanzas over and over in her mind, pulling out suspect words, and dissecting whole lines from the riddle, trying to find the urgent solution that would lead her to the pit where the first missing competitors were trapped. But nothing was forthcoming.

""A martial sounding place revealed,"" Marcie recited. "That sounds like the Crystal Cove Armory, but security is way too tight to sneak people in just to hide them. Unless the kidnappers have military clearance of some kind, the Armory's unlikely to be it."

She stubbornly tried again, yet it felt like the deeper she dug, the harder the conundrum was to solve concretely. ""With bones for sale..." Who sells bones?" she asked herself. "Where are they? In a butcher shop?"

Frustration was creeping into her thought processes, and she had to stop, for a moment, to find her inner calm and dispassion to work through the riddle again. The answer, she knew, was sitting on her face, but it was like trying to unravel, not a tight Gordian Knot, but a unkempt, tangled mass of string, comprised of nothing else but sloppy Mobius loops.

"All right," Marcie said. "Tanks aren't built to save people, and blades are weapons. They don't heal people."

She sighed and leaned back in her chair. She wanted to take her mind off of the case, to rest, if just for a few moments. Absently, she looked around the dinning area, and spied a sign hanging near the ordering counter that said "We cater. Ask for our rates."

A well-needed joke bubbled up from that little detail and brought a little chuckle from Marcie.

"It's too bad _this _place didn't do the catering," she muttered. "Things might've turned out better. If the guests had drank any more of that punch, the hospital would have had to order more smelling...salts..."

Her mind exploded with a leap of logic.

_Hospital..._

_Order..._

Marcie bolted from her chair, the sudden motion turning patrons' heads. She walked briskly to the line of customers gathered to order, and cut in front of them, to see the cashier.

"Hey, you can't cut in line, girly," the cashier chided Marcie. "Wait your turn."

Marcie, ignoring the irate grumbles and murmurs of offended people behind her, asked, "Do you have a phone book?"

"Yeah, under the pay phone, over by the bathrooms," said the cashier.

Marcie left the front of the line and beelined to the side of the dinning area where the bathrooms awaited. There was hung on the graffiti-scrawled wall, a pay phone, and in a small shelf beneath it, was a dog-eared, local phone book.

Marcie opened it, earnestly, and flipped the delicate pages over to M. Then, her fingers blurred across business after business until, finally, a slim finger slid down the list, and she found her target.

A single address appeared by her fingertip. Ivana Medical Supply Warehouse 502 Marshal Street.

A tight smile of triumph rolled across Marcie's face.

"Marshal Street," she said. "A _martial_ _sounding_ place, indeed."

She jogged out of the cafe, jumped into her car, and tore back to the heart of town, hoping that her deductions weren't too late.

Rhonda had finally returned to Marcie's now-empty table, carrying a hot bowl of stew on a platter.

"Now, where'd she go?" she asked aloud. "Some people. And I even put in extra helpin' of muskrat, too."


	4. 4

_4~_

A dark, gloved hand curiously stroked the edged cheek bone of a skull on a shelf. It ran fingers across its smooth, dome-like top before the cloaked and hooded figure walked away from it.

Inside the dark interior of the Ivana Medical Supply Warehouse, the figure moved both as a furtive, searching thing, and as someone who glided along the aisles of catheters and bedpans as comfortably as if it had been haunting the place for years.

The figure peered into offices, checked around parked forklifts, and listened near stacked boxes of product, then moved away, unsatisfied.

The length and breadth of the building, at least those parts of it that didn't bar due to being more secure than others, were searched as thoroughly as time allowed, yet the quarry remained frustratingly elusive.

The figure was about to head towards the warehouse's storage cellar, when a sound from the far side of the building caused the figure to flow into the deep shadows of nearby aisles.

The door of the building's side entrance shuddered, as beams of late afternoon sunlight squeezed through the widening space between door and frame. Wisps of smoke issued from where the hinges would be, and an acrid scent filled the air.

Strong, thin fingers gripped the lock side of the door, and gingerly pulled it open, allowing Marcie to cautiously step into the warehouse.

Although she was grateful for the sunlight illuminating a good portion of the interior, Marcie felt an immediate concern at how easy her breaking and entering was. Why didn't she trip an alarm?

The figure maintained its position in the darkness, watching Marcie tip-toe along, searching the corners and unoccupied shadows of the building with her penlight.

Marcie wanted to call out for the team, and hopefully hear a response, but stealth was the watchword for the moment, such as it was, with her flooding half the warehouse in daylight.

She then began moving into the areas where the aisles were. Sunlight was just touching the part of the aisles pointed towards the office and loading area, but if she were to venture further, she would have slipped into the darkness of that part of the building.

As the figure retreated further into the shadows, Marcie slowly advanced into them.

The penlight flashed along the canyon walls of the tall aisles of medical product, as Marcie progressed, determined to check the whole of the building for any sign of Team California, or any booby traps laid out to discourage would-be rescuers from finding them. So far, nothing was amiss.

Marcie turned and backtracked out of the aisles momentarily, concerned that someone might have discovered the acid-opened door.

She was preparing a hastily-concocted lie for her being there, when a body was seen standing by the doorway, casting a long shadow before her.

The hooded figure, noticing Marcie's cautious approach, spoke first.

"Who are you?" asked the figure, in a rasp whisper. "What are you doing here?"

Marcie stood her ground, trying to rein in her sudden trepidation, and studying the figure's appearance, so as to give an accurate description to the police, when she eventually ran into them.

"Who are you?" Marcie asked back. "Are you the one who kidnapped those kids?"

The figure spread arms wide in greeting, the worn cloak widening to a psychologically intimidating degree.

"I'm the Glum Reaper, and I'm only here to get what's mine. If you're thinking about getting in my way, however..." He finished his speech by sliding out an axe, its lethal head shining bright against the light of day, from the depths of his cloak.

The axe brought the already awkward situation into a tense one for Marcie, yet she felt she had to stay. If this person was responsible for the kidnappings, then getting him to talk might reveal more information on where the victims were.

"Glum Reaper, huh?" Marcie asked, flippantly. "You do know that the Grim Reaper carried a _scythe_, not an axe."

Glum responded by approaching the girl, his ragged mantle fluttering from the movement like the settling of a raven's wings.

"Why do you think I'm so glum?" he answered. "Now get out of here."

"Sorry, can't do that," Marcie decided, feeling decidedly glum herself, when she noticed Glum closing the distance with more verve.

"Then it's time for you to reap what you have sown," came his final word, as the axe flashed up into a striking motion.

Marcie, needing no more indication of this stranger's intent, turned off her penlight, and leapt into a evasive run back into the relative safety of the vast darkness among the aisles, Glum in frustrated pursuit.

Fear helped her maintain her lead, as Marcie ran priorities through her mind, as fast as she ran through the warehouse.

First, evade her opponent.

There were sixty aisles, in total, in the dark side of the building, and Marcie, struggling to maintain a stealthy distance from her pursuer, was determined to use every one, as they both zigged and zagged in one aisle and out the other.

With the penlight off and fumbling hands outstretched to feel her way, she hoped that the darkness would hamper Glum's movements through this maze, as much as it did hers.

_Stop. _The soft sound of mantle brushing along the floor. Try to accelerate ahead and increase distance by two aisle lengths.

After doing so, and once her eyes had better adjusted to the gloom, a careful peek over her shoulder showed that Glum had eventually lost her. He wasn't seen, but could be heard in the rear, bumping into the sides of aisles while trying to quickly find Marcie's position when she evaded.

Second priority, capture said opponent.

Marcie exited from an aisle, and suddenly had to fight to keep from panicking, once she made out the macabre shape of hanging skeletons on display racks, up ahead.

"With bones for sale," she sighed, relievedly.

Once her nerves settled, Marcie forced herself to work on a trap, for it was obvious that this Glum Reaper was trying to keep her from looking further into the warehouse. One look at the grim bones in front of her, however, suddenly gave her all the inspiration she would need.

Although it would have been hard to see, Glum held up his axe in a silent promise to drive its head into this meddlesome girl. He was in stealth mode, walking quietly in the dark, and straining his ears through his hood, for a sound, any sound that would give the doomed girl away.

_Step. Step. _He crept slowly along the warehouse's labyrinth, disregarding the sounds of his own footsteps.

_Step. Step. _He could only make out ambient sound up ahead, but not enough to pinpoint a useful direction from which to draw a bead on the girl. It felt like some human reenactment of a submarine duel. Run silent, run deep, indeed.

_Step. Step. _

A light up ahead! The girl!

Glum raised his weapon, and ran as fast, and as quietly, as he could towards the shine at the end of an aisle up ahead of him.

As he closed on her, he could finally see the sleeve of Marcie's wool jacket illuminated by her held penlight. The axe rose even higher, more energy for the downstroke.

Glum leaped out of the aisle and brought the axe down without another thought, its head connecting solidly to skull, yet it wasn't clear to him what skull he had struck.

Upon closer inspection, over the fallen, but still, running penlight, Glum could see, to his eternal sheepishness, the decoy made of a skeleton wearing Marcie's jacket and loosely holding her penlight.

Chagrined, he was about to resume the chase, when the crackling sound of something small came up from the floor near his feet.

Glum prepared to walk and suddenly found that he couldn't lift his feet, and the more he struggled, he more heldfast his feet were when they rested on the floor again.

With growls that were tinged more with fear and frustration, than with anger, Glum almost missed Marcie stepping out from a nearby aisle, a comfortable distance away from him.

"New invention," Marcie explained, picking up the pen light that rolled by her feet. "Encapsulated rubber cement that expands and hardens when in contact with air. I call them my Splat Caps. You've been stomping on a few, just now, but I won't hold that against you."

She turned to go back to the light side of the warehouse to continue her search, but said, in parting, "However, my Splat Caps will hold _you_ against the floor for a while. Enjoy."

_'The basement,' _Marcie thought, ignoring the sounds of desperate futility behind her. _'A place this big should have a cellar, or storage room. The team might be in there, somewhere. I hope.'_

Utilizing the daylight, she checked along the far side of the work area, the dim walls that held strong, metal doors that led either through, or, she hoped, down.

There!

Marcie sped-walked over to such a door that sported a sign that read "Storage Basement," but just before she made a motion to open it, she spotted a cd player on a nearby desk, with a sheet of paper partially covering it, that read, "To Olympiad."

She went over and picked up the player, turning it this way and that, inspecting it for anything untoward. Except for the fact that it was already loaded with a small cd, it looked harmless.

After she was grudgingly satisfied that it didn't pose some threat to her, she gingerly placed the earbuds into her ears and pressed Play.

"Greetings, Former Olympiad," the amiably smooth male voice said to her. "I'm happy to see that someone at the toast has brains. Not that Sheriff Stone, surely."

Marcie gave a troubled frown at that, wondering how on earth did this voice on the cd know anything about what happened at the convention center.

Not only that, whoever this Glum Reaper was, he didn't sound anything like the voice on the cd. So who was he? Did he worked for this voice in some capacity? A guard, perhaps?

Marcie shook her head and dismissed the notion. The garb and the axe? Glum didn't seem like a guard, and if he didn't kidnap anyone, then why was he here?

"You're probably wondering why I went through all of this, and why I will put _you_ through all of this," the voice continued, bringing her out of her revelry. "It's simple, really. These last few Olympiads, you will agree, were far too easy, not challenging enough, and, well, let's face it, hardly worthy of the name Tri-state Olympiad of Science. So, I decided to change all of that. Look under the cd player, and then check the basement."

Marcie looked down on the desk, and was surprised that she hadn't notice the envelope before. Picking it up, she opened it, took out the folded note from within, and read the riddle.

"From my dark imagination,

Comes this lesson on moderation,

The truth of this trap is for you to see,

Oh, to have too much can be bad for thee."

Marcie gave a thought to the conundrum, but couldn't unravel it right away, so, she shrugged, opened the basement door, and descended.

Quietly, the door sealed and locked itself behind her.

As Marcie crept down the staircase, she had to wonder why the path was lit only with various, colored glowsticks held aloft on thread that was taped to the ceiling. It gave the proceedings an unnerving, gothic quality.

She made it to the foot of the stairs, then turned to see the immensity of the basement before her. It was, essentially, a smaller warehouse underneath the main one above, also lit with hanging glowsticks, casting the whole interior in a multi-colored twilight.

As she began to walk deep into the cellar, she noticed that the terrain was dominated, not with metal aisles, but with orderly cityscapes of stacked boxes on pallets, and gas tanks lined in rows beside a work bench, and against stone walls. If the hostages were in there, the boxes could keep them well-hidden, while she wound up losing herself in the labyrinth of medical supplies.

They have to be here, she thought, grimly.

After a few minutes, Marcie gave a mental estimation of how far she had walked from the staircase, and concluded that she had made it to what she could only guess was the center of the dim basement. Then, she heard a shuffle and moans.

Coming around an island of crates, Marcie stepped out and found, to her deep relief, the hostages.

Comprised presently of two haggard-looking teenaged boys, Team California sat bound by rope to their chairs, gagged with bandannas, and noticeably short of breath. Hanging over their heads was another envelope, held up by a thread.

"Hang on, guys," Marcie consoled. "I'll get you loose."

Pulling her Swiss Army knife from her jacket, she carved into the tough rope's fibers, leaving scraps and rough lengths of hemp by the freed hostages' feet. As they gratefully stood and rubbed the circulation back into their extremities, Marcie reached up and plucked the envelope from its string.

"Another riddle?" she asked herself.

"Hey, thanks a lot," said the first team member, catching his breath. "We weren't here that long, but I'm sure that we don't want to spend another minute in this place."

"Yeah," the second team member chimed in, taking a pained inhale. "It looks like a rave in Dracula's castle."

"What's wrong?" Marcie asked them, when she began to notice their breathlessness. "Are you all right?"

"I don't know. We were fine a little while ago," Team Member #1 managed to say. "then, all of the sudden, we both started feeling like we ran a marathon."

"It's just gotten so hard to breathe, for some reason," Team Member #2 huffed.

"Don't worry," said Marcie, turning back to the direction of the distant stairs. "Just follow me, and we'll get out of here."

She pulled a glowstick free from her surroundings to use as a light source, as she opened the envelope and read the letter she released.

"Hello," Marcie read aloud. "You just turned on a voice-activated countdown, when you said "Hello.""

A flat screen monitor, hidden in the uppermost box of a nearby stack, extended from its concealment, glowed to life, and showed five minutes beginning to count down, distressingly.

"You have five minutes until an electric match is activated," she finished reading. They all bolted to the stairs with no further prompting.

"An electric match? That's a heat source," Marcie pondered, as she and the others, immediately exhausted, reached the foot of the staircase. She took a careful sniff of the air. "But I don't smell anything for him to set off with it."

"Like gas?" asked Team Member #1. "We saw nothing like that down here."

"Yeah. Just a lot of medical supplies, from what we could see," said Team Member #2.

"Hmm," Marcie pondered again, leaning against the side of the stairs to rest. What good was an electric match, if there was nothing for it to burn? And why was everyone, even herself, strangely, so winded?

She took a glance at the basement's environs, wondering why the teens' captor would keep them there.

Her surroundings, however strange, gradually demanded that her mind take notice, and when it finally did, she froze in brilliant enlightenment.

"Wait a minute!" Marcie said, with a start. She pulled out the earlier riddle and read it again. "Lesson on moderation? Oh, to have too much can be bad for thee...An electric match..."

She looked around the far periphery of the cellar, and finally, with her senses alert to it, noticed the soft hissing that she hadn't earlier.

"Stay here," Marcie commanded. She listened for the sound of release and carefully tracked it to a row of oxygen tanks, their valves open. Then, it dawned on her.

"Oh, to have too much can be bad for thee..." she recited. "Oh, to..._O2! _Oxygen! And too much _can _be bad for us! We're out of breath because we're breathing in too much _pure_ oxygen. And it's flammable! That's why there are glowsticks everywhere, and the alarms didn't go off upstairs. There's no electricity in this building, except down here for the electric match!"

Marcie reached over and turned off the tanks, but she knew the air was already impregnated with pure oxygen, by now.

"What did you say?" asked Team Member #2.

Marcie jogged back, yelling, "Up the stairs! Now!"

Team California didn't ask what was happening, they just obeyed, running pell-mell upstairs, but when they reached the door, it wouldn't yield.

"We can't get out!" screamed Team member #2.

"The door's...locked!" Team member #1 yelled in a breathless panic.

Below them, Marcie gave a chagrined sneer at not realizing sooner that this was the first trap, a layered one, and could quite possibly be the last for all of them. But time had not run out yet...

"Stay up there, you guys!" Marcie called out. "I'm going to look for the match!"

Team California couldn't believe what she said. "What?" they asked in unison.

"I've got to disable it," Marcie explained, knowing, soberly, that there simply was no time to search the whole of the basement. "but in case I don't find it, you guys stay up there. The higher you are, the safer you'll be, if the gas goes off. Wait a minute."

Something told Marcie to check her immediate area first, so, she chanced a peek under the stairs and saw something intriguing.

Bolted to the floor, was a square, perforated cage, a thick electrical wire running from its base and past the boxes beyond.

Kneeling down, she peered into the boxy cage with her penlight, and saw the electric match in its center, so placed so no one could tamper with it.

"I found it," she signaled to the others.

"It's an electric match. Can you find the power line and, oh, I don't know, cut it with you knife?" Team Member # 2 surly asked.

"Cut a live wire?" Marcie asked him, sarcastically, chalking up the boy's very bad idea to fear. "No thanks, beside, I can't take a chance that a spark will set off the oxygen."

Marcie sat in front of the cage in a desperate funk, trying to force the panic of an imminent death from clouding her thinking.

"How do I keep this thing from burning?" she asked herself. "There's no water in here, just medical supplies. Wait! Medical supplies! Tanks! A gas for a gas!"

Standing upright, like a shot, Marcie ran over to where she remembered seeing other tanks standing in rows by a workbench. Looking around, she finally spotted, in the back row, a dusty tank of CO2.

Awkwardly grabbing the tank from the top, she dragged it over to the electric match's cage and gently laid it down. Then, she ran back to the worn workbench and fished frantically through its drawers, finally finding a tank wrench and a valve.

Staring to huff and puff from increased exposure to the pure O2, and hoping that she had the right valve, Marcie ran back to the CO2 tank, knelt down, and clumsily, urgently attached the valve to the gas cylinder with the wrench.

Then, she rolled, swung and pointed the cumbersome tank at the tiny cage, as though she were playing some high-stakes version of "spin the bottle," and opened the valve to full, releasing a continued, pressurized gust of carbon dioxide.

Then Marcie wearily headed up the stairs.

"What happened down there?" Team Member #1 asked, while letting Marcie pass, so she could examine the door.

"I just released carbon dioxide next to the match," Marcie told him, running her hands and the beam of her pen light along the tight space between the closed door and its frame. There was a rubber lining filling that space. The modified door was effectively sealing the oxygen-rich air in with them. "It's good against electrical fires. Hopefully, the CO2 will keep the match from igniting, buying me time to burn through the door with my acid vials."

"You...carry acid with you?" Team Member #2 asked from behind them.

"I never leave home without it," Marcie said, while applying the liquid along the hinge plates and hearing the satisfying hiss of destroyed metal.

"When I give the word," Marcie told them. "We're gonna ram the door together."

With a practiced eye, Marcie could see the bubbling hinges finally surrender to the corrosive assault of her acid. Now the only holding the door in place was its lock.

"Get ready," she huffed. The boys stood in running positions on the stairs, focusing on escape and not their fatigue.

"Now!"

The trio rushed up and slammed into the thick door, causing it to give way and swivel on its stubborn lock, and then crash to the floor with a heap of grateful children on top.

"I think it's way past five minutes," Marcie surmised, as she slowly got up, luxuriating in breathing in air that contained the customary 21 percent oxygen. "and since we don't have an oxygen-rich fireball flying up where the Good Lord sits us, the CO2 must've did its job."

Slowly, she began walking towards the aisles, Team California in tow.

"Suffocation by air," pondered Team Member #1. "or immolation by same."

"Whoever grabbed us, knows his science," said Team Member #2.

Marcie had to concur, getting closer to the aisle and the area where she left the so-called Glum Reaper. Inwardly, she had to congratulate the voice on the cd for what was a deliciously clever riddle and deathtrap. It looked like he might deliver on his goal to make this year's Olympiad one for the history books.

On the other hand, she wasn't too keen on getting killed by this maniac, so, the sooner he was discovered and law enforcement had him in custody, the better.

"Yeah," Marcie quipped, soberly. "I can smell the evil genius from here."

"Where are you going?" Team Member # 2 asked her, as they entered the dark aisle.

Switching on her pen light, Marcie answered, "I'm just checking up on someone I left behind."

Swinging the beam of light around the area that she recognized as the last place she saw Glum, she saw instead, nothing.

"I guess he had to take off," she said, as she looked down and saw how Glum had managed to escape his bonds.

On the floor, still stuck in the opposing goo, were a pair of dark-colored boots.


End file.
